Foreign Affairs committee  I wanted to address some of the statistics on that. The leading cause of death, globally, among women of reproductive age is HIV. At this point, only 45% of women who are pregnant receive antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother to child transmission. The other thing to throw int

Foreign Affairs committee  You know, Canada has taken the lead in putting maternal and newborn health, including issues of nutrition, including issues of workforce, on the table. This is our point in time to continue to be leaders. It's one thing to pick up a ball and hold it and start a game and play th

Foreign Affairs committee  If I could add just one further point, I beg just a moment. The other piece is the innovative financing piece of this. It isn't up to Canada, necessarily, to be funding it, but we can continue in terms of pressing innovative financing. There's a fantastic proposal on the table

Foreign Affairs committee  We're funded through fees paid by our member associations.

Foreign Affairs committee  To follow along with that, Ethiopia was also the first country that signed an IHP, an integrated health plan. The Norwegians set it up, and their Prime Minister has been a leading advocate in reducing maternal and infant mortality over the last few years. They put aside a $10 bil

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. It's a pleasure for me to be able to speak before this committee this morning. As president of the International Confederation of Midwives, I represent 250,000 midwives in 87 countries. I also represent the confederation on the board of the Partnership for Maternal,

Status of Women committee  Yes, but not by withholding service. It's by contributing service.

Status of Women committee  Yes, and there could be choices around the best practices.

Status of Women committee  We weren't referring to any particular clinic.

Status of Women committee  To NGOs.

Status of Women committee  Our midwives within the G8 probably have, consistently, one of the highest levels of education, regulation, and provision of services.

Status of Women committee  I don't give a yes or no to a question like that, thank you. What I would have to answer is that various G8 nations might have various levels of expertise that they can actually contribute to addressing this entire issue.

Status of Women committee  I think this is one of Canada's strengths. The call for accountability must take place. We must be accountable. The G8 has made promises. At the University of Toronto, they did a phenomenal review by country and by category of G8 promises made and G8 promises kept. Canada actua

Status of Women committee  I can speak to that a little bit. Even under the gag rule, if you're a health care worker in the field, whether there are dollars coming in or not--and it will be very difficult to describe dollars going in--it will be more at the level of who among the NGOs gets moneys than abou

Status of Women committee  Yes, and not to misquote Ms. Lynch...because Ms. Lynch wants to be really, really clear that Canada is playing horrific politics right now. And when I'm saying it's politics, it's going to cost women's lives. Now we're put in a position of having to compromise what we do inste